ClickFunnels vs Kajabi (2026): Real Year-One Cost Compared

In ClickFunnels vs Kajabi, Kajabi wins for course-first businesses and ClickFunnels wins for funnel-first ones. Pick Kajabi if you need graded quizzes or sell coaching and podcast products; pick ClickFunnels if you sell through funnels and want 10,000 contacts on the entry plan for a lower bill. ClickFunnels starts at $97/mo ($81/mo billed annually). Kajabi’s cheapest plan is now Basic at $179/mo ($143/mo annually), after a price rise that reached existing customers from 13 January 2026. Year one at the entry tier costs $970 to $1,164 on ClickFunnels Launch and $1,710 to $2,148 on Kajabi Basic. Both offer a 14-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee. We checked every price here on 14 October 2026.

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ClickFunnels pays us a commission; Kajabi doesn’t, which is why every Kajabi mention on this page is plain text with no link.

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Which is better, ClickFunnels or Kajabi?

Neither is better across the board. Kajabi is built around the course; ClickFunnels is built around the funnel that sells it. Work out which of those your business really is and the choice takes a minute.

Pick Kajabi if:

• The course or coaching programme is the business, and students spend weeks inside it.
• You need graded quizzes with a pass mark. Kajabi can block “Mark as Complete” until a student passes. ClickFunnels has no native graded quizzes.
• You sell coaching, a podcast or a newsletter as a product. Kajabi has a product type for each, and Basic covers 5 products.
• You want your own affiliate program for less. Kajabi includes it from Growth at $249/mo; ClickFunnels only from Optimize at $297/mo.

Pick ClickFunnels if:

• You sell through funnels and want a separate funnel for each offer.
• Your list is between 2,500 and 10,000 contacts. Launch covers 10,000. Kajabi Basic stops at 2,500 and pushes you to Growth.
• You want the cheaper entry: $97 against $179 a month, or $970 against $1,716 a year on annual billing.
• You run more than one brand. Launch includes 5 custom domains; Kajabi Basic includes 1 website.

A quick test if you are unsure: count where last quarter’s revenue came from. If most of it came from people who never logged into a course (a book funnel, a high-ticket call, a one-off product), you are funnel-first, and paying Kajabi’s course premium buys you features you won’t use. For most readers, that one question settles ClickFunnels vs Kajabi; the rest of this page is the numbers behind it.

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ClickFunnels vs Kajabi at a glance

Most coaches and course sellers start on the entry plan, so this table compares ClickFunnels Launch with Kajabi Basic.

Prices checked 14 October 2026.

Kajabi wins on product types, graded quizzes, email volume and the cheaper route to an affiliate program. ClickFunnels wins on price, contacts, communities, domains, AI and API access. Funnels are a draw: both list them as unlimited.

How much do ClickFunnels and Kajabi cost in 2026?

At entry level, Kajabi now costs nearly twice what ClickFunnels does: $179 against $97 a month.

Kajabi pricing after the January 2026 increase

Kajabi announced “a price increase across all plans” in an update labelled December 2025. Existing customers moved to the new prices from their first billing date on or after 13 January 2026. Legacy plans moved too; only Founder and Beta Invite plans were exempt. Kajabi’s help centre says it doesn’t offer price locks or renewal discounts to offset increases.

The Kickstarter plan is no longer on Kajabi’s pricing page, so Basic is now the cheapest way in. Annual billing takes about 20% off, and you can switch between monthly and annual at any time.

Contacts are the cap to watch. Extra contacts cost $125 a month per block of 25,000, which is $5 per 1,000. On Basic, one block takes you to $304 a month, which is more than Growth at $249.

ClickFunnels pricing

Annual billing takes about 17% off and saves $194 a year on Launch. Dominate is billed annually only. Every tier includes unlimited pages and visitors, plus unlimited funnels (which ClickFunnels currently labels a limited-time inclusion). You pay more for contacts, email volume, courses and seats. For the full breakdown, see every ClickFunnels plan and what it costs in year one.

Year one at the entry plan

The gap is $746 a year on annual billing and $984 a year on monthly. Note that Kajabi’s $99 promo saves you just $6 over annual billing in year one. Its real value is a cheap first three months with a refund window, not a discount.

Prices other comparisons still get wrong

When we checked the top results for ClickFunnels vs Kajabi on 14 October 2026, roughly half still quoted old prices on one side or both. If a page shows any of these, it hasn’t been updated:

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ClickFunnels vs Kajabi pricing at your list size

Your contact count sets the real price more than any feature does. Kajabi Basic caps at 2,500 contacts. ClickFunnels Launch caps at 10,000. Between those two numbers, the gap nearly doubles.

Year-one cost on annual billing, cheapest plan that covers the list. Prices checked 14 October 2026.

At 10,000 contacts, Kajabi costs $1,418 more in year one on annual billing. That is the number most ClickFunnels vs Kajabi comparisons miss. Basic plus one $125 contact block would be $304 a month, so Growth at $249 is the cheaper Kajabi route, and you pay Growth prices whether or not you need Growth’s features.

At 25,000 contacts the gap shrinks to $418 a year. At that size, Kajabi Growth’s 50 products and built-in affiliate program can be worth the difference to a course business. At 75,000 contacts, ClickFunnels Scale still covers you at $197 a month, while Kajabi costs about $499 a month either way (Pro, or Growth plus two contact blocks).

If you are near the 10,000 line on ClickFunnels, check whether Launch or Scale fits your list before you pay.

What fees does each platform take on a sale?

Neither takes a cut of your revenue. ClickFunnels answers “Does ClickFunnels take a percentage of my sales?” with a flat “No” on its pricing page, and Kajabi advertises a 0% revenue share. The differences sit in card processing, and in what happens when you bring your own Stripe account.

Here is one $100 sale on a US card:

Two Kajabi details catch people out. First, on Basic, using your own processor such as Stripe adds a 2% Kajabi fee on top of Stripe’s own fee. On Growth it is 1%, on Pro 0.5%, and PayPal is excluded. On $5,000 a month of sales, that 2% is $100 a month.

Second, payment plans and subscriptions through Kajabi Payments carry an extra 0.7% on every transaction in the series. On $5,000 a month of payment-plan sales on Kajabi Basic, the 0.7% is $35 a month. Kajabi Payments in the US also adds 1.5% for international cards, 1% for currency conversion and $15 per dispute.

On the other side, ClickFunnels’ payments support doc (updated 6 October 2026) says it adds no fees beyond processor rates, and you can connect Stripe directly without using Payments AI. Payments AI starts at 2.9% + $0.30, with billing, tax and invoicing at a 0.5% all-inclusive rate. If you sell high-ticket payment plans, fees can tip ClickFunnels vs Kajabi further than the monthly price does.

Is Kajabi better for courses and coaching?

Yes. This is Kajabi’s home ground, and pretending otherwise would cost you money.

Graded quizzes. Kajabi quizzes can be graded or ungraded, auto-grade multiple-choice and checkbox questions, set a passing percentage, and lock “Mark as Complete” until the student passes. That matters if you sell a certification, a compliance course, or anything where “finished” has to mean “passed”. ClickFunnels lets you add surveys inside courses, but scored quizzes need custom code or a third-party tool.

Product types. Kajabi counts each Course, Coaching, Podcast and Newsletter product as one product, and all your downloads together as one slot. So Basic’s 5 products cover a coach with a course, a coaching programme, a podcast, a newsletter and a downloads library. ClickFunnels Launch gives you 3 courses and 3 communities, and we could not verify a coaching or podcast product type.

Certificates. A draw. Kajabi can send certificates through its automations, and ClickFunnels has had course certificates since March 2026.

Your own affiliates. Kajabi opens its affiliate program from Growth at $249 a month. ClickFunnels’ Affiliate Center starts at Optimize, $297 a month. That is $48 a month less on Kajabi if affiliates are how you plan to grow.

Community. Here ClickFunnels wins. Kajabi Basic and Growth include 1 community and Pro includes 3. ClickFunnels Launch already includes 3, so a separate community per programme is cheaper there.

Student app and branding. Kajabi has a mobile app for students. The branded version with your name on it is a Pro feature, alongside Kajabi’s public API. Growth and Pro can remove “Powered by Kajabi” from your site footer, though transactional emails and the Kajabi app keep Kajabi’s branding.

Who this section is not for: if you sell one course as the back end of a funnel and nobody needs to pass anything, none of these features earns Kajabi’s $746 premium.

Is ClickFunnels better for funnels and selling?

Both list unlimited funnels, and ClickFunnels currently labels its unlimited funnels a limited-time inclusion without saying what that means. So funnel count won’t decide it. What ClickFunnels does better is the rest of the entry plan.

What $97 a month buys on Launch:

Four times the contacts. 10,000 on Launch against 2,500 on Kajabi Basic. For a funnel business, the list is the asset, and Kajabi charges you Growth prices to hold 10,000 of them.

Room for more than one brand. Launch includes 5 custom domains, and Scale and up are unlimited. Kajabi Basic and Growth include 1 website; Pro includes 3.

API and webhooks for $197, not $499. ClickFunnels opens webhooks and its full API on Scale. Kajabi puts its public API on Pro.

AI from day one. Launch includes 1M AI words; Kajabi Basic lists 0 AI credits, and Growth 500. If you want AI to draft pages for you, see how ClickFunnels’ AI funnel builder works in practice.

Launch has limits, though. 50,000 emails a month is not unlimited: at 10,000 contacts that is five emails per contact a month, so daily mailers to a full list need Scale. Kajabi sends unlimited marketing emails on every plan. And Launch support is “Standard”; priority and live chat start at Scale. Our full ClickFunnels review covers the editor and day-to-day use.

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Do ClickFunnels and Kajabi have free trials and refunds?

ClickFunnels and Kajabi both do, and the headline terms match: 14 days free, then a 30-day money-back guarantee. The fine print differs, and so do their $99 promos.

On ClickFunnels, the card is charged on day 14 unless you cancel first. Its pricing FAQ adds the two windows up to 44 days: the 14-day trial, then 30 days of money-back after the first charge. There is no $1 signup charge. Our guide to how the 14-day ClickFunnels trial works covers the dates and the cancellation steps.

On Kajabi, the trial end date shows under Settings > Subscription & Billing, and the card is charged on the day the trial ends. Some features stay locked until you pay: editing site-wide email templates, editing email content in the Theme Builder, sending test emails, some automation actions (sending an email or a certificate) and bulk contact imports. If you plan to move a big list across during the trial, you can’t.

Both vendors run a 3-months-for-$99 offer right now, and neither shows an end date. Kajabi’s is for Basic: you pay $99 upfront, it renews at $179 a month, and the $99 is refundable within 30 days. ClickFunnels’ is for Scale and for new customers only: $99 upfront, no trial, then $197 a month plus tax, with the 30-day money-back guarantee still applying. Taken through year one, the ClickFunnels promo comes to $1,872 against $1,970 for Scale on annual billing. The details are in our write-up of the 3-months-for-$99 Scale offer, and if you can wait until late November, check this year’s ClickFunnels Black Friday deal.

Our call: take the free trial if you are still deciding. Take a $99 promo only once you know which platform you want.

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Which should you pick?

Course-first coach or educator: Kajabi. Basic at $143 a month on annual billing if your list is under 2,500. Growth at $199 a month annually if it is bigger or you want affiliates. Use the 14-day trial to build one graded quiz before you commit.

Funnel-first seller under 10,000 contacts: ClickFunnels Launch. $970 in year one on annual billing, which is $746 to $1,418 less than Kajabi for the same list, with 5 domains and 1M AI words included.

List around 25,000: either, on features. The gap is $418 a year (Scale at $1,970 against Growth at $2,388). Course depth and affiliates point to Kajabi Growth. API access, more domains and room for 75,000 contacts point to ClickFunnels Scale.

Budget under $97 a month: neither yet. Look at Systeme.io first. Our breakdown of Systeme.io’s pricing covers its plans, ClickFunnels vs Systeme.io is the head-to-head, and our list of free ClickFunnels alternatives has more options.

Can you use both?

You can, but price it first: $97 + $179 is $276 a month at monthly prices, or $970 + $1,716 = $2,686 a year on annual billing. That only makes sense if a premium programme needs Kajabi’s graded quizzes and a separate funnel operation already pays for ClickFunnels. We have not verified a native integration between the two, so work out how buyers will move from one to the other before you pay for both. If you are weighing an agency-style all-in-one instead, see ClickFunnels vs GoHighLevel.

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Frequently asked questions

The bottom line

Kajabi’s 2026 price rise made this an easier call than it used to be. On annual billing, Kajabi’s entry plan costs $746 more than ClickFunnels Launch, and $1,418 more once your list reaches 10,000 contacts. Pay that premium if graded quizzes, coaching and podcast products, or a cheaper affiliate program will earn it back. If your business runs on funnels, ClickFunnels gives you more contacts, more domains and API access for less.

Either way, spend the 14-day trial building one real page or lesson instead of watching tutorials. Your own numbers will settle ClickFunnels vs Kajabi faster than any comparison, this one included.

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